Scar Tissue
by Scandalacious Intentions
Summary: "In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers the wounds with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." Every time Teddy greets her with "Wotcher, Nana," and his silver eyes twinkle in his heart-shaped face, it's a knife through her heart. Andromeda studies her grandson.


**Disclaimer: I'm not Ms. Rowling, but I **_**do **_**like to play in her sandbox, torture her characters a little, and then go home and amuse myself with my own toys.**

**A/N: This is very much like 'Handyman' - largely because reading over it gave me the inspiration for this.**

"_It has been said, 'time heals all wounds'. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone." - Rose Kennedy._

Pain was only to be expected. Andromeda had consoled herself with the much loved cliché 'time heals all wounds', but fifteen years later, she could no longer deny that the cliché was just something her friends said to her because they didn't know what else they _could _say.

Her grandson, in his natural form, resembled his mother. He had inherited her heart-shaped face and twinkling silver eyes, her soft-angled eyebrows and her widow's peak. Genetics favoured his father's long eyelashes, chiseled cheekbones, and Greek nose which Ted had had to grow into before his profile managed to look attractive. If she said so herself, he was going to be lady-killer.

He had inherited his mother's talent and love of zany hair colours. He tended to stick to the lighter shades of green after two years of morphing it jet black and skulking around wearing eyeliner.

Ted had become a great fan of eyeliner after meeting his paternal grandmother - a woman of whom Andromeda strongly disapproved because Mrs. Lupin refused to grow old with grace, telling filthy jokes about nuns and drinking cheap champagne in the afternoon.

Luckily, as far as Andromeda was concerned, her grandson had developed a temperament much akin to his father's; everything in moderation. Unfortunately, this did not include Mrs. Lupin who could expect visits from Ted every week during the holidays because, unlike the woman who raised him, he deemed her "cool".

He walked like a Black, with a certain almost swagger, which Andromeda felt certain his father would have all but beaten out of him. He held his head high and his shoulders back. He took long strides, only slowing down for Andromeda in her old age and forcing even Harry to trot beside him.

In some ways, he reminded her very much of his mother. His temper was absolutely volcanic. Angering Ted Lupin was foolhardy in the extreme. Vesuvius caused less damage. It took a great deal to enrage him, but once he erupted he was willing to forgive and forget immediately.

He smiled like her, his lips pulled back over the upper row of his teeth, exposing dimples which he could not morph away. His skin was the same English Rose tone his mother's had been.

He also possessed the wondrous ability to trip over thin air, turning almost every flight of stairs into an assault course. He bruised easily, a blood problem the Blacks had suffered from for generations.

He was fortunate to have inherited his father's quick and dry wit, but, whereas Remus Lupin had been taught not to fire the cannons when his opponent was unprepared for the damage, his son had no such scruples.

Like his father, he drank tea with almost enough sugar to turn it into treacle and no milk. He also licked the tip of his finger before turning a page. He read everything he could get his hands on - from Myron Wagtail's autobiography to his father's battered copy of _The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings_.

Andromeda had never believed that character quirks could be inherited until her grandson entered his teens and became a fan of punk rock. He held his drink even at fifteen and smoked like a chimney, though Andromeda was still pretending that she didn't know that.

Though he was fast approaching his sixteenth birthday, he still relied on her to organise his life. She kept track of his dental and medical appointments, his trips to Hope Cove to Mrs. Lupin, his visits to the Potters, and even his holiday homework.

He and his mother excelled at the same subjects. He used her wand rather than his own and, as much as Andromeda _wanted_ to be exasperated that he'd made her buy one for him, she couldn't be. She only hoped it brought him more luck than it had his mother.

Teddy, his ambitions more like his father's than his mother's, had chosen not the offensive for a career path, but the defensive. He had assumed that he would become a rock star and managed average marks in his classes with little to no effort. At thirteen, realising that being able to play 'Three Blind Mice' on the acoustic guitar did not make him John Lennon, he toyed with the idea of becoming an Auror before abandoning it in favour of working as a Healer. His marks, once he set his mind to being the top of his class, shot up almost overnight.

He still liked to rebel. He was the only rebellious swot she had ever heard of. Ted listened to heavy metal and, since his best friend had introduced him to rap, music with lyrics that would make a sailor blush. Andromeda was under the impression that he used these words too, but he was wise enough to keep his language in check in her company.

He was a natural-born mischief maker with a twinkle in his eye and a butter-wouldn't-melt smile at the ready. Being the son of Remus Lupin, who she had been told (and could all too easily believe) had been something of a hell-raiser in his youth, she supposed lying might come naturally to him, but Ted surpassed her expectations in the art of deception. He could hold firm eye contact and tell her that he honestly didn't know what had happened in the kitchen despite the fact that the house was empty but for the two of them.

Kitchen catastrophes did not happen often. Her grandson had discovered a talent for cookery which had evidently come from his father because both she and her daughter had been utterly useless in front of an oven. Sandwiches had been a culinary challenge for Tonks, whose clumsiness did not aid her in a kitchen, but her son could perform miracles with self-raising flour and salted butter.

She had never before met a child who was a perfect mix of both parents. Sometimes, it was painful to be in his presence. He was left-handed, as his father had been, and held his cutlery in the same positions. Ted lived in awe of her and she sometimes caught him gazing at her in quiet adoration, the same way her daughter had done when her mother dressed in long gowns and threw dinner parties that Tonks considered to be the height of sophistication. His laugh was exactly like his father's - deep and throaty. When he concentrated on his homework, he sat at the kitchen table and wrote in the same small and spiky script his mother had hated when she was his age. His tongue poked out of his mouth even at fifteen, just as hers had done.

Fifteen years later, she still cried herself to sleep. Andromeda was unsure whether this was because time did not heal wounds or because her grandson reminded her of the woman who, even though she would have been forty, would always be her little girl who she felt personally responsible for failing to protect. Swallowing the lump in her throat every time he greeted her with "Wotcher, Nana," was the lowest point of her day, and at the same time, it was the reason she got out of bed in the morning. She may have lost a daughter, but she had gained a son.

Day by day, the scar tissue was forming.


End file.
